In god we trust

    Earlier, colleagues talked about what is happening in the Russian gaming market as a whole, talked about the prospects and called interesting numbers. Today I want to tell in more detail how one of the most significant and interesting divisions of the Mail.Ru Group gaming direction is organized - the games operations department, or simply GOD, as employees call it.

    But first, a few nostalgic paragraphs about the development of the Russian market for online games in terms of operating games.

    The Big Bang Theory

    About 10 years ago, there were practically no online games in Russia. The most famous was Ultima Online; someone played in Tibia, there were rumors about the existence of a super-realistic game in Korea [Lineage], which was even played by someone from someone's acquaintances ... In the former CIS, games appeared from infinitely talented domestic developers who made teams of several people serious enough projects for that time - Another World, Shadow Worlds, etc.

    My colleagues and I just ran into the Nival Cursed Lands online mode and were looking for something new. Our choice fell on Shadow Worlds, a game from St. Petersburg developer Sergey Voronov. Quickly enough, we joined the game, and soon we got to know Sergey at all, discussed the details and launched the second game server.

    At that moment I worked at two jobs: at the university — I maintained user computers (about 4,000 computers) in working condition, and also worked as an expert in the field of information technology. Work with the project has become the third, but the most interesting. By this moment there was a Fight Club, Sphere and Everquest were launched; but these projects passed me by. I had my own passion - I liked working with the game, communicating with players, giving them new emotions.

    We had a fairly small community, and I knew almost all the key players in ICQ, on the forum and in the game. We organized meetings where players could chat live. It is interesting that the meetings were completely calm in nature - those who promised “problems” to each other in the game joyfully communicated on the subject “Do you remember how you and I ...”.

    Then came the moment when a German came to us with a proposal to launch the game in Germany. His brother had a rather large online auction in the country, at which it was decided to advertise the project. At the peak of our work with the project, we had 2 servers in Russia and 2 in Germany. The game was completely free. The concept of free-to-play was not there yet. We decided to make money on the game by selling premium accounts that give owners a number of goodies compared to other players.

    At some point, from our players, I found out that several clans are about to leave to play Dark Age of Camelot. It was a completely different world, completely 3D. Getting an account for the game was not easy then: in Moscow, you could buy access from some guys you had to meet at the metro, etc.

    I was so impressed with the game that I contacted the publisher and agreed to purchase the rights to Russia. The price tag has broken the space. He turned to several specialized investors who were involved in the publication of games. "What? Online? But who needs it? This is not a popular trend. ”“ We make console games, we don’t need it. ” For non-core businesses, the business was too risky. As a result, the deal did not take place. I continued to communicate with publishers, I was looking for an opportunity to attract quality products to Russia, but some asked for too much money, others refused, explaining that Russia does not have an online market and successful launches.

    At that time, there was another misfortune in the market: store shelves and stalls were bursting with pirated goods. The pirates themselves translated the games and sold them. Online piracy also began to appear: theft of game servers or the creation / use of game server emulators. Dozens of Lineage 2 pirate servers touted themselves with experience multipliers, working clan halls and other things. The earnings model was simple: play for free, buy money or artifacts from the pirate holder.

    At the same time, the market for browser games was progressing: Fight Club, Territory ... Of the client games, I can only remember the Sphere. Clones of BK came out with the regularity of mushrooms after rain, found their small audience, but nothing more.

    Attempts have begun to launch licensed online games in Russia. Everquest (Akella), Guild Wars (Buka), Lineage II appeared on disks from Buki. The stage of global growth of the online industry in Russia has begun.

    In early 2008, I started working at Nival Online.

    New game history

    The history of the gaming division of Mail.Ru Group began in 2006, when the company launched its own portal Games.Mail.Ru. In 2009, the company joined the holding Astrum Online Entertainment and its studios - IT Territory, Astrum Nival (formerly Nival Online, where I worked), Time Zero, Dark Joker (Kiev), ITT Nord (Peter). During the merger, the companies maintained their own traditions and “chips”, the internal culture that had formed, and continued the development of existing large projects with almost the same composition. Therefore, today the same people work in the studios, which allows us to maintain and accumulate the best experience in the industry.

    Today, Mail.Ru Games (a gaming division of the Mail.Ru Group) is the leader in the East European online entertainment market. Almost 1000 people work in the game division of the company, branches and studios are open in Russia, Ukraine and Germany. The internal structure of the business unit essentially reflects the key areas of its activities: our studios (IT Territory, ITT Nord, Allods Team, Mini-games, Pushkin, Dark Joker) primarily work on creating all kinds of their own games (client, browser, social, mobile ), and licensed projects in Russia are handled by the game operations department. In addition, the department has specialized departments: mobile games, social games, Games@Mail.ru.

    The union of the strongest Russian developers and specialists allowed us in just a few years to release popular projects in almost all genres of online games: these are client MMO games: (“Allods Online”), browser-based: (“Legend: Legacy of the Dragons”, “Three Kingdoms”, RIOT ), social: (“Favorite Farm”, etc.) and mobile hits: (“Juggernaut: Revenge of Sowering”).
    Today we have more than 70 online games in our portfolio, among which there are hits of our own design, which are popular in Russia, America, Asia, Eastern and Western Europe, as well as foreign blockbusters for which we acted as publishers.


    Games Operations Department

    All foreign gaming projects that appear in Russia under the brand Mail.Ru Group go through the department of gaming operations. The employees of this particular unit take responsibility for a particular project and choose the future hit from a huge mass of online games.

    The Operations Department is one of the largest divisions: more than 150 people work here. This includes the following departments: game project management, web development, design, localization, monetization, operation, game community department, user support department ...

    In development, we went through different stages. We started by gaining experience on the example of operating the first large projects (Perfect World) on the market (we gained invaluable experience that helped us launch our projects), systematic development with a relatively small number of projects, and the gradual development of new tools.

    Then they tried a different strategy: they quickly “increased” the portfolio of games, practically captured all the niches of the market, every week we had a new launch - either a CBT or an MBT of a new game. The team showed that it is able to work in the wild workload mode, launching projects one by one.

    Today, the strategy of our department is to choose only the best projects that become real hits. So, in 2012 we launched only two games - Warface and Dragon Nest, both of them are actively developing, gaining fans, and Warface has set a world record among online shooters in the number of players simultaneously on the same server (more than 145,000 people). In January 2013, we announced a new project - ArcheAge, which today can be called the most anticipated in Russia.

    How do we choose games?

    The selection of the game is a crucial and very important stage; how well we conducted it in a quality manner will be visible shortly after the launch of a new project. There is no need to rush too much.

    When choosing the type of game, we try to look to the future. A huge number of users have already appeared who do not want to plunge into the game with their heads, hardcore, as is almost always assumed with large MMORPGs. Often a person wants to enter the game for half an hour - to relax and rest after work / study.

    As for the producing countries, most often we work with China and Korea. However, we do not stop in Asia and consider the games of Europe and America.

    First, the game goes through our experts: 10 people play for several weeks (in their free time), then each gives his own assessment according to a fairly large list of criteria. It is necessary to look at everything through the eyes of the player, even if the audience of the players is girls, as was the case with ParaPa.


    Roughly speaking, according to a list of certain criteria, we evaluate whether we like this game and whether we believe in it.

    The choice is made - what next?

    When the decision is made, a producer is appointed who gives a start to all the processes necessary for launching the project, including transferring the main materials (documentation, localization, administration tools, shard specifications, etc.) to the operation team. Then the game is given to the localization department for translators, editors and testers. Technical experts purchase and configure server hardware. The art department begins to prepare designs for the promotional site, main site, forum and other graphic materials. The web department makes up the site, connects various services necessary for the project. Community managers and support study the game in detail and compile game guides - both external, accessible to players, and internal, for use in the company. Marketing prepares activities to attract future players.

    We always strive to launch a working version of the game for internal testing as quickly as possible. This allows us to quickly catch all the possible errors that we immediately ask the developers to fix (for example, at this point it may turn out that the developer did not provide support for entering the Cyrillic alphabet). This is followed by painstaking work with the regular release of new builds, their testing, fixing bugs, introducing the necessary changes.

    When the game is ready, we make a quiet start - “Friends and Family”: at this moment the game is available to company employees, their families and friends. If this test passes the test, we run a PTA. The whole process from making a “make!” Decision to the start of a PTA in an ideal situation takes about six months. For large projects, the period may increase up to a year. Much depends on the volume of localization. Let's say in shooters there is less text, and everything goes faster, and MMORPG requires the translation of millions of characters.

    At the launch stage, little predictable difficulties may arise. For example, there are difficulties in localization when, due to the loss of a tag in the text, the game client stops working. It is also important not to make a mistake with the supply of server capacity. You need to be able to quickly increase capacity. So it was with us, for example, with Warface: at launch, we launched on it almost all the reserves of the company's servers.

    At this preparatory stage can be considered completed. Then begins the life of the game with a huge audience of players, but that's another story.

    In the following posts we will talk more about other areas and projects. By the way, if you have questions about the work of the game operations department, about how we select projects or about the launch process, ask them in the comments.

    Eugene Mikhno,
    Operations Director Mail.Ru Games

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